An aide to New Jersey Republican senatorial candidate Steve Lonegan got himself fired yesterday following a bizarre, obscenity-filled rant against Democratic candidate Cory Booker. When are political types going to realize that bizarre, obscenity-filled rants are serious business, and should best be left to professionals like Yr Wonkette? In the interview with Talking Points Memo’s Hunter Walker, who is making rather a cottage industry of them, Lonegan staffer Rick Shaftan speculated that voters would reject Booker because of his tweeted flirtations with Lynsie Lee, a stripper in Oregon — not because Booker chatted with a stripper, but because he failed to sexually harass Lee properly, which Shaftan considered pretty suspicious, and maybe even kind of faggy.

“It was just weird. I mean, to me, you know, hey, if he said, ‘Hey, you got really hot breasts man, I’d love to suck on them.’ Then like, yeah, cool. But like, he didn’t say that,” Shaftan explained. “It was like kind of like, I don’t know, it was like what a gay guy would say to a stripper. It’s the way he was talking to her. It’s just like like there was no sexual interest at all. I don’t know. To me, if I was single and you know like some stripper was tweeting me, I might take advantage of the perks of the office, you know?”

Rick Shaftan clearly knows how to talk to the ladies, is what Rick Shaftan is saying here. You talk to them like a dudebro frat boy, that’s what they like! Especially the strippers, man, you gotta let those broads know that you like their tittays and want to grab ‘em and motorboat those big ol’ gazongas, you know?

We are going to go out on a limb here and suggest that that perhaps Mr. Shaftan is unaware that “You got really hot breasts I would love to suck on them” is not generally a winning gambit. While perhaps Cory Booker DOES know that? This observation comes to us from Yr Editrix, a known woman. Also, we have read Lynsie Lee’s tumblr, where she replies to questions in this manner:

Anonymous: What is your fantasy? Also, can I give you it.

Lee: My fantasy is to pay off my student loans and buy a house. Yes you can do that for me.

So we are thinking that maybe Booker took the smarter approach. Instead of talking about her fantastic knockers like Shaftan would, Booker instead said a bunch of queer-sounding polite shit to Lee instead:

“And the East Coast loves you and by the East Coast, I mean me,” Booker wrote to Lee.

“Well now I’m blushing :),” she replied.

“Its only fair,” wrote Booker.

The fuck is THAT, man? Are you a player or not?

Following the revelation of the tweets in September, Booker’s campaign downplayed the communication’s significance, joking that “the most shocking thing about this story” is the fact that Lee works at a vegan strip club, because come on, vegan strip club? Booker himself said that he just likes to be on Twitter “listening to people and engaging with people no matter what their profession.”

In the interview with Walker, Shaftan just couldn’t get over Booker’s unmanly failure to mention Lee’s awesome mammalian protuberances, an oversight which Shaftan surmised would lead voters to question Booker’s fitness for office:

“This is strange. It’s just weird. … It’s like, ‘I don’t know who she is. I don’t know anything about her.’ Get the fuck out of here dude. You can’t follow her Twitter page and not know she’s got those great breasts. How do you fucking not know?” Shaftan said. “It’s just too odd and people they just wonder, like, who does this guy really want to work for? Who’s he representing?”

Seriously, New Jersey: Are you gonna vote for some wussy who demonstrates he hasn’t got Game? Booker didn’t even neg the broad, even!

Shaftan had a lot more to say, including the slightly weird analogy that Booker’s not giving a damn about rumors that he’s gay is a whole lot like Gary Hart’s challenging reporters to follow him around when asked whether he was having an affair:

“Gary Hart was like on his way to the nomination and then you see this picture on the front of the National Enquirer. It’s like, holy shit what a fucking idiot. … Like what are you thinking? … I’ve worked with people who like to have friends, girlfriends and shit, but they’ll never get photographed with them, you know? It’s like, they’re very discreet and professional, you know? You kind of know, but it’s not like sit on my lap, let me eat your pussy while you’re sitting here,” Shaftan said.

Friday evening, a few hours after TPM posted his insights, Shaftan was fired by the Lonegan campaign. Steve Lonegan said Shaftan’s views

“are not reflective of my views or that of my campaign.

“His comments are distasteful and offensive, and his contract as a vendor for my campaign will be terminated immediately,”

Shaftan was unavailable for comment, but we’re assuming he would have assessed Lonegan’s firing him as too faggy for words. Also, Wonkette would like to congratulate Hunter Walker for his excellent timing in arranging an interview with Shaftan moments after he’d obviously downed several glasses of Auntie Wonkette’s High-Test Shoe Polish & Social Lubricant.

About the author

Doktor Zoom Is the pseudonym of Marty Kelley, who lives in Boise, Idaho. He acquired his nym from a fan of Silver-Age comics after being differently punctual to too many meetings. He is not a medical doctor, although he has a real PhD (in Rhetoric and Composition).